


Someone to Notice

by WriterMom3010



Series: The Weight of Loneliness [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 5x13, Episode Tag, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 05:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10550488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterMom3010/pseuds/WriterMom3010
Summary: Felicity's thoughts after her heated conversation with Oliver about Black Siren.





	

Felicity slowly lowers herself into her computer chair, takes off her glasses, and rubs her eyes. She is exhausted. So far her feelings toward Prometheus have all been focused on anger, with hints of frustration as he remains just out of reach. Today, though, he has left her just feeling tired. Black Siren was a genius play. Felicity knows she needs to keep moving, she needs to harness that anger into using every means available to find him and take him down, but all she can manage right now is to sit. She thought she felt lonely before, but with a fake Laurel in town, loneliness erupts in her like never before. She’s upset that Black Siren is here for a lot of reasons. She’s dangerous, she’s working with Prometheus, she is confusing Oliver. But, perhaps the main reason is a selfish one. Black Siren presents yet another person for Oliver to save while completely missing that Felicity is drowning. Felicity isn’t one to need others to save her. She is strong and capable. But, today, today she just feels tired. And alone. Being alone seems like it shouldn’t take much out of you. If you are alone, there is no one who needs you, no one who requires your time and energy. But, in reality, loneliness is a crushing weight. People aren’t made to be alone, so we help and we give and loneliness is what we experience when we receive nothing and no one in return. There is no one to shoulder the burden.

She puts on her glasses and sits back in her chair, going over in her mind the brief, yet heated conversation she had moments before with Oliver. Doesn’t he feel the weight? The weight of constantly helping and giving? Maybe it doesn’t crush him the way it does Felicity, because he has people like her and John who help him. Who notice him. Who know him better than almost anyone. Those words, which should have felt like a relief, felt like a pressure. A pressure so heavy it threatened to squeeze her heart to dust. She still knows him better than anyone else, yet he seems to barely notice her. Star City, John, Susan, and now Fake Laurel. They have captured his attention, given his need to carry the burdens of others a focus. And, is it so bad, that after all they have been through together, she just wants a little bit of that attention? She’s not asking for much. She ended things and she knows it was what she needed to do, but if she still knows him better than almost anyone, she hoped he would still know her too. That he would still notice her too. Notice that she doesn’t talk as much. That her quips have become more sarcastic than sweet. That after their break up and Havenrock and Billy, she is just so damn alone. She hoped that he would notice that maybe she just needed someone to notice.

Being alone in a room with him, just a step from him, took her breath away. And not in the swooping stomach, butterflies in your chest kind of way. But in the “this moment is so heavy” kind of way. She wishes she could focus on the part of the conversation where he was so worried she would be hurt. But, if she does, she won’t stop, her mind oscillating from the weight of yet another burden [stay safe. Oliver needs you to stay safe] and the pain of disbelief [you don’t even notice I’m already hurting. I’m already drowning. How could you possibly care about my safety?]. So, instead she turns her focus to the other thing he needs her to do. She can’t promise her safety, but she can promise him answers. Because that’s what she does. That’s who she is. And, if she’s going to be alone, she’s at least going to be useful. Useful for Oliver and for the team, but also useful for herself, she thinks, as she reaches forward and picks up the Pandora thumb drive, rolling it around in her hands, pondering once again about how maybe, just maybe, Helix is exactly what she needs right now.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hoping to write some more of Felicity's thoughts after different scenes in 5b and possibly explore her turning to Helix. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Twitter: annieworsman


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